


make my wish come true

by ProbablyVoldemort



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Actors, Alternate Universe - Celebrity, Band Fic, Childhood Friends, F/M, Filming a Holiday Special, Former Child Stars, Friends With Benefits, Musicians
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-26
Updated: 2019-12-26
Packaged: 2021-02-25 22:41:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21893071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ProbablyVoldemort/pseuds/ProbablyVoldemort
Summary: It's been ten years since the Delinquents went off air, so clearly it's time for a reunion in the form of a Christmas special.  Yeah, it sounded like bullshit to Murphy, too, but he hadn't seen the crew since Raven's wedding a few years back, and he'd managed to convince Kane that his character should have a dog, so there was no way it could be all bad.Right?
Relationships: John Murphy/Raven Reyes, background Bellamy Blake/Clarke Griffin, past Finn Collins/Raven Reyes - Relationship
Comments: 13
Kudos: 109
Collections: Chopped: Holiday Trope Exchange 1.0





	make my wish come true

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas and Happy Boxing Day to all of you!
> 
> Thank you for joining me in my gift! I really hope you enjoy your present and your holidays!
> 
> Prompts used this round are:  
> \- almost kiss / interrupted kiss  
> \- holiday movie (as in being in a holiday movie)  
> \- friends with benefits  
> \- band au  
> \- set during Christmas
> 
> I think it should be obvious, but in case it's not, Raven, Murphy, and co. were in an ARKidz show back in the day (think early 2000s Disney Channel shows for reference) and now it's the 10 year anniversary of the end of the show and they're making a reunion Christmas special. 
> 
> I also got really into the background of what this show was about, so sorry if the descriptions of their pasts as child stars gets a little much sometimes.
> 
> I hope you enjoy it! I enjoyed writing it and had lots more in this universe that I just ran out of time to fit in!

“So, John,” Ellen said, leaning forward. “We all know your career didn’t begin a solo.” A picture of him from when he was ten, one of the godawful promotional photos with that terrible bright purple mohawk he still couldn’t believe his parents had let the producers convince them he needed, popped up on the screen behind them. There was a mix of coos and laughter from the audience. “I know. Wasn’t he cute?”

“What happened, right?” he laughed, and the audience laughed with him.

“One of your ex-co-stars, Clarke Griffin, recently resurfaced,” Ellen continued, and the screen switched to the engagement photo Bellamy had posted on his Instagram a few days earlier. “And is apparently engaged to one of your other ex-co-stars.”

“Yeah.” Murphy nodded, leaned forward, went over the notes in his head that he and Harper had come up with for getting out of this conversation as quickly as possible. There was a reason Clarke had disappeared from the spotlight, and he wasn’t going to put her back in it anymore than he had to. “I’m really happy for them. I sent them my congratulations when I heard, but I haven’t really seen either of them in years.”

“So what you’re saying is that you’re going to disappoint us with a lack of steamy details,” Ellen said, and Murphy laughed again.

“Sorry,” he said. “You’re just gonna have to settle for the steamy details of my life.”

“I guess that’ll have to be enough,” Ellen allowed, and Murphy leaned back in his chair, letting out a barely there sigh of relief. “Back to the band, though. It’ll coming up on ten years since Delinquents went ended.” Someone in the audience booed, and Murphy snorted. “Do we have any hope for a reunion?”

Murphy shrugged, letting his smirk stretch across his face. “You never know, Ellen.”

He answered a few more questions, and then Ellen was leading them into a break.

“But when we get back, we’re gonna play a game,” she promised, and the audience cheered. “And then John will be back again at the end of the show to sing his new single for us.”

And then Murphy was disappearing backstage to get his makeup touched up and to eat something because, fuck, he was starving.

“I got a call,” Harper, his agent, said, shooing the makeup people away from him. “From Kane.”

Murphy frowned at her, moving towards the food table. “Kane?” he repeated. The only Kane he knew was… “Marcus Kane?”

“That’s the one,” Harper confirmed, following behind him. She shot a few pointed looks that had the people crowding the food scurrying off, and then they were relatively alone again. “He wants to do a Delinquents reunion movie.”

Murphy looked up at her, his hands full of mini sandwiches. “No.”

Harper rolled his eyes, snagging a mini sandwich of her own. “I already told him yes,” she said, and Murphy groaned.

“I’m firing you,” he told her.

“You won’t,” she pointed out, and, yeah, she was right. “Everyone else had already said yes, and you can’t have a Delinquents reunion without Johnny McFish.”

“You could definitely have a Delinquents reunion without Johnny McFish,” he countered, rolling his eyes. “They had a High School Musical reunion without Troy Bolton, and Johnny is way less important than Troy.” Harper rolled her eyes, and Murphy let the rest of what she’d said register. “Wait. _Everyone_ has said yes? Even Clarke?”

Harper nodded, and Murphy sighed. If Clarke was coming out of hiding to do this reunion, what choice did he have? Of course, considering Kane had married Clarke’s mom while they were still filming Delinquents meant that Kane had probably brought up the idea to Clarke before he’d contacted anyone else, but that was beside the point.

“And Raven and Finn?” he continued, because he was still trying to find an out. Harper nodded again, and he raised an eyebrow. “They can’t even be in the same room, but they’re down to do a reunion together?”

Harper shrugged. “I mean, I don’t know their reasons,” she told him, which, yeah, obviously. “But the movie will be very much Finn’s genre, and it would probably not look good in terms of PR if Raven refuses to do the reunion just because her ex-husband will be there.”

Murphy sighed. Of course Harper would have valid points. That was her job, after all. He was going to continue arguing, though, because he could and because he’d been spending all day playing nice with Ellen and he was going to blow soon if he couldn’t have a small fight with Harper.

“Wait,” he said again. “What do you mean this is Finn’s genre? Finn does Hallmark movies.”

Harper grinned at him. “Kane wants to do a Christmas special,” she said, and Murphy groaned. “Guess you’ll be releasing some Christmas music after all.”

Someone came up then, telling him he had to be back on stage, and Murphy handed Harper his plate.

“Fine, I’ll do it,” he sighed, letting himself be led away. “But tell Kane that Johnny McFish needs a dog, or I’m out. And don’t let him talk you into a mohawk because I’m not doing that again.”

Once upon a time, Murphy’s parents had taken him to an audition. He’d seen the ad on TV, and spent months begging them to let him go, and they’d spent the drive and their time in the waiting room reminding him that he might not get the part but that was okay.

Once upon a time, ten year old John Murphy had been cast as Johnny McFish, a star of the new ARKidz show Delinquents, and his career was made.

Delinquents had made about as much sense as any other kids show made in 2002. Johnny and his friends were in detention indefinitely for something mysterious. There, they formed a band (Lemonade Mouth wished it had what Delinquents did). They then had shows and concerts and stuff, sometimes during detention and sometimes outside of it, which their parents and teachers never found out about thanks to the magic of kids’ television (Hannah Montana who?). There was also a side plot (after Ben “went on exchange” during most of season two while Bellamy took part in an Oscar winning movie and Kane decided that the kid with the Oscar needed a bigger role) where Olivia’s older brother discovered their secret and then tried to catch them in the act and tattle to their parents like a pre-Candace Candace.

All in all, it was a fairly typical show and had a good run from 2002 to 2009, at which point the Delinquents graduated high school and went off to college to live happily ever after.

And apparently it still had a significant enough fanbase for the producers to think that a Christmas reunion special would be a profitable decision.

As much as Murphy had argued against it, he really wasn’t against doing the special. He may have been against putting out a Christmas album on principle—it was a corporate sellout and weren’t there enough versions of Jingle Bells out there already?—but any music they made for this reunion show would probably be packaged on a Delinquents CD and wouldn’t tarnish the reputation of John Murphy.

Just the reputation of Johnny McFish, and Murphy didn’t really care about Johnny’s reputation.

So yeah. He didn’t mind doing the movie, and he hadn’t seen everyone at once since…wow. Had it really been since Raven and Finn’s wedding? That was, what? Seven years ago?

He’d hung out with Raven occasionally up until her divorce, but then his music and her acting were really taking off and they’d mostly fallen out of touch. He’d checked in on Clarke through Bellamy a few times, but hadn’t really seen her in person in years. Octavia was who he’d seen the most, running into her for at least a few minutes every year at the Grammys or at some other music related event.

Had it really been so long since he’d seen everyone?

By the time they’d wrapped filming for the episode, he’d decided that he was 100% on board with this movie. Okay, not the Christmas music. Or the having to act. Or the seeing Finn and not being allowed to punch him in smug Hallmark face.

So maybe not 100%. Maybe like 50% for the actual movie itself.

But he was 100% on board with seeing everyone again.

“Hey,” he said, interrupting whatever probably important information Harper was telling him. “Wanna come over and marathon Delinquents? I haven’t watched it in forever and I should probably get reacquainted with Johnny if I’m doing this.”

Harper glanced up from her phone, frowning at him and no doubt aware he hadn’t actually been listening to anything she was saying.

“We have a flight at seven tomorrow morning,” she pointed out, and Murphy raised an eyebrow.

“Is that a no?”

Harper shrugged. “We could probably through, like, two seasons before we leave for the airport if we start now.”

Which was how he found himself in sweats and a Blodreina t-shirt he’d gotten during Octavia’s band’s last tour, perched on his couch with Harper and throwing popcorn at himself on the TV.

Harper handed him the script a few weeks later as they were leaving his concert, the fat pile of papers a great reminder as to why he didn’t act anymore.

He usually spent the time after he performed working out the rest of his energy on a punching bag, but all he could do was shower before crawling into the bed with his script to find out what Johnny McFish had been up to for the last decade.

The main plot of the movie, of course, was Freddie and Raine.

Finn, playing Freddie McFish, Johnny’s fraternal twin brother, had been the main lead since the beginning. Murphy was pretty sure the original intention had been for Freddie to end up with Clarke’s character, Claire, but Finn and Raven had had better chemistry, and fans were really into the bickering that Claire and Ben had once Ben became more of a regular.

Freddie and Raine, Raven’s character, had gotten together in the…fourth season, if Murphy remembered correctly, as had Finn and Raven off screen, and they were who the people wanted to see in the movie. Unlike Raven and Finn, their Delinquents counterparts were still in a happy relationship ten years later, according to the script.

Or were they?

Raine would spend most of the movie concerned that Freddie was going to break up with her. The audience would also get Freddie’s side of the story in which he was being secretive not because of planning to break up with her, but because he was figuring out how to propose and picking out a ring and all those fun romance tropes that Finn made his career off of in his cheesy made-for-TV movies.

Claire and Ben, who had had a rivalry turned romance and had gotten together by the end of the show, were not as important as Freddie and Raine, apparently, because they had gotten happily married sometime in the time between the end of the show and the beginning of the movie. 

Their subplot revolved around the baby that Claire was pregnant with—spoiler alert: it was a boy and would be born on Christmas and named after Claire’s dead dad—and Olivia’s apparent distaste with her brother and her friend dating. Murphy knew that that followed how Olivia had been feeling towards the relationship at the end of the show, but it’d been ten years. You’d have thought Olivia would’ve gotten over it.

Octavia’s character Olivia’s subplot, besides voicing her disapproval a whole marriage and baby too late, was waiting for her date to show up for the holidays. Which, shockingly, was also Johnny’s subplot. They had both been on the lower end of popularity with the fans back during the show’s run, and, other than Octavia’s occasional guest appearances in TV shows, neither of them did much acting now, so it made sense that their stories seemed to be the least focused on.

Murphy was expecting through half the script for it to be revealed that Johnny and Olivia were actually each others’ dates and they were together and in love and waiting until Christmas to tell their friends. They’d had a brief relationship on the show when he and Octavia were twelve or thirteen, which had ended once the producers realized how awkward they both were in romantic situations and that the practice really wasn’t helping. It wouldn’t have been that big of a shock if the script had revealed them to be together again, and from the script, at least, Murphy figured they’d be playing it for the camera that that would be the big reveal.

But then Murphy got to a scene where Johnny found Olivia crying and saying that her boyfriend dumped her over a text, and suddenly things had gotten interesting.

Things got even more interesting a few pages later when it turned out that Nathan Miller, who’d played Nick the nerd back in the Delinquent days—Murphy had spent many takes shoving him into lockers and garbage cans before their characters had called a truce in the final seasons—and who was now a main on a cop show, was back for the reunion special.

A fact that Murphy learned when Nick showed up at the hospital on Christmas Eve while Claire was in labour with a kiss for Johnny and a, “Sorry I’m late, babe. Half the highways were closed because of the snow.”

Huh. 

Apparently Johnny wasn’t straight. 

That was cool of ARKidz—or the regular ARK or whatever other ARK channel this was airing on. He hadn’t exactly played Johnny as gay—or bi or pan or whatever—when he’d last played him, but he hadn’t exactly played him as straight, either. Johnny was never in a relationship for more than a few episodes—officially because he was as much of a player as a middle/high school kid could be and unofficially because Murphy was so awkward at acting like he was into someone that no amount of editing could make it believable.

There was a reason he’d dropped the acting and just stuck to the singing.

But whatever. Johnny had a boyfriend. That was cool.

Olivia, for her part, fell for some random guy who she kept running into throughout the movie.

The rest was centred around the band getting back together, and there were plenty of dramatic Christmas songs scattered throughout that only vaguely went with the plot, and it ended with the Delinquents first concert back together on New Year’s Eve. Considering Claire was supposed to have had a baby a week earlier, it was a little unrealistic, but so was a bunch of kids keeping a band secret from their parents for nine years, so who was he to judge.

Oh, and Johnny had a dog that he brought with him in most scenes, which really was all that mattered.

All in all, it was a script. Would it be cheesy as hell? Absolutely. Was it true to the characters of the TV show? Sure. Was Murphy going to have to get another mohawk? Definitely not.

The movie wasn’t going to win any Oscars, and Murphy was going to have to sing a shit ton of Christmas music, but he figured being back with everyone again was going to be worth it.

And, if not, well, at least he had a dog to look forward to.

He was flown to the filming location not long after that, near the beginning of April. Apparently spring was when you filmed Christmas specials. Who knew?

(Actually, Finn probably knew. Finn was probably all screwed up holiday wise since he exclusively filmed movies for holidays. He probably thought Christmas was actually in April.)

Octavia had made a group chat suggesting they all meet up before they started on set, which was how he found himself heading into some dingy bar in his usual ballcap and aviators, hoping no one here would recognize him.

“Oh my god! Is that John Murphy?”

Murphy swore under his breath, ready to turn and run. And then he caught sight of Octavia laughing, tucked into a booth with Clarke and Bellamy, and he rolled his eyes and headed over.

“Your disguise doesn’t do shit,” she told him, standing for a hug.

“You can let me dream,” he shot back, and she laughed.

“I haven’t seen you in forever,” Clarke said, grinning as she took her turn hugging him.

“You look good,” he told her, and she pulled back, her smile widening.

“I feel good, too.”

He hugged Bellamy next, congratulating them both again on their engagement, and then settled down at the table.

Finn arrived next to a bunch of groans that he either ignored or didn’t register, starting on about the set for the Halloween movie he’d just come from. (Apparently April was actually Halloween season and Christmas didn’t start until July in the land of Hallmark.)

It wasn’t long before Raven showed up, and another round of hugs was starting.

Octavia got the first round, and then they were all catching up on their lives in the decade since they’d stopped spending all of their time together.

Murphy hadn’t really thought about it too much, but there was so much of their characters from Delinquents wrapped up in who they were as people. Maybe it was due to spending most of their teen years playing those characters. Maybe Kane and the writers had based their characters on them more than he’d realized then. Maybe it was a combination of both.

But, in a world where Delinquents was a reality, he could’ve seen each of their characters heading in the same directions their real lives had.

Kane had completely stolen the basis of their characters from the Breakfast Club (as well as the general detention part of the show, Murphy supposed).

Take Raven, for example. Or, rather, Raine Castle: Nerd. Raine had been the stereotypical nerd at the beginning of the show, glasses and all. She’d become less of a cookie cutter archetype as the series went on, as all their characters had, but Raven had been just as much of a nerd off the set. At the end, she’d gone off to university on an engineering scholarship.

Raven herself was in movies, just coming off a three movie stunt for some sci-fi thing that was probably going to be nominated for an Oscar. She already had three, what was one more? She was just as gorgeous as Murphy remembered her, and now that she wasn’t with Finn, he was actually allowed to look.

After the show finished when most of them were 17, Raven and Finn had continued dating. They’d gotten married at 19, and then three weeks later, Raven walked in on Finn with his tongue down his half-naked Hallmark co-star’s throat. He’d tried to play it off as rehearsing, apparently, but even Murphy knew that sex wasn’t even alluded to on Hallmark movies. They were very PG-13 and family friendly and even suggesting that anyone did more than kiss was off the table.

He’d spent a lot of time with Raven then, because his music hadn’t really taken off yet and she was working as a low-level character on a movie in the same town he happened to be living in, and because both Raven and Finn’s publicists insisted they keep up the marriage ruse for at least a couple years, for publicity sake. So she spent a lot of time away from the house she had to share with her “husband” and at Murphy’s place instead, which somehow managed to not make it to the rumour mill.

And then Raven’s divorce was finalized and Murphy was touring with Imagine Dragons and Raven was off to Europe on her first big break, and they fell out of touch.

Onto Finn, or Freddie McFish: Jock. Freddie was the leader of the group and an all around, family friendly nice guy. He played sports and did good in school and, like Raine and Claire, was appalled that they’d landed in detention in the first place. Freddie left the series with a soccer scholarship, a record deal, and dreams of becoming a doctor.

Finn had none of that, but Murphy could just as easily have seen Freddie as the Hallmark movie star that made moms everyone swoon. He’d gotten his first role just after the series ended, and had only gone up from there until Finn’s face was synonymous with Hallmark movies. 

There was the engagement and short-lived marriage with Raven, the afore mentioned tongue down the throat of hi co-star, and, other than seeing his face every time he turned on the TV anywhere near any holiday, Murphy didn’t know much about Finn’s life now. And he didn’t really want to.

Clarke was Kane’s stepdaughter, and probably the reason the show had been created in the first place. Kane had been dating her movie star mom since before Delinquents began, and, back when they’d been kids, Clarke had been convinced that the only reason the show was even happening was because he wanted to get on her good side and her mom wanted to get her into acting.

Clarke played Claire Robinson: Princess. She was the rich girl whose crime that landed her in the indefinite detention of the Delinquents universe was something so atrocious that it couldn’t just be paid off by her parents. Her good girl act had become just an act by the second season or so, but she still got on the nerves of Ben, who she had a rivalry with throughout the series, accelerating once Ben learned the band’s secret and eventually turning into their relationship. Claire went on to become a movie star.

Murphy could’ve seen Clarke in the same position as her character once the show was over, but then everything had gone to shit for her in the year following the end of the show. Clarke’s dad had died, horrifically and publicly, and then her girlfriend had announced her love for her ex during a talk show not long after that. Her mother’s drug addiction came to light, her best friend was murdered, and magazines were slandering her name due to her recent coming out as bisexual.

He really didn’t blame Clarke for what she’d done, even though she’d been vilified even more by the press. She’d arrived at an interview one day, hair hacked off and died a bright red, screamed about everything she’d been going through, and then broke down sobbing.

She’d reappeared a year later for Raven and Finn’s wedding, hiding on the sidelines with Bellamy, but other than that, she’d disappeared until Bellamy’s recent announcement of their engagement.

Murphy had checked in on her as much as he was able—and as much as she’d allow—in the first while, and then occasionally through messages with Bellamy since.

But she seemed to be doing much better now, and had apparently opened an art gallery and was selling her own works. The reunion movie was her testing the waters of heading back into the spotlight, but she already had her doubts on whether she’d be back for good.

Octavia played Olivia Shipman: Weird Kid. Murphy couldn’t remember what that character was called in the Breakfast Club, but Olivia encompassed the weirdness of the early 2000s best friend character. She had the weird hair and the weird clothes and a new strange hobby every few episodes. Octavia had tried to convince Kane to let Olivia join a biker gang after the finale, but he’d refused. Murphy was pretty sure Olivia had been sent off to art school instead.

Honestly, though, he wouldn’t have been surprised if the script had had Olivia in Octavia’s place: lead singer of the Grammy winning rock band Blodreina and part time TV guest star. Apparently, she had enough traction from her band, child star past, and Oscar winning brother that she could just show up on a set with a “Hey, I’m gonna be a guest star on whatever episode you’re filming,” and was rarely turned away. Murphy was kind of impressed.

And then there was him, Johnny McFish: Rebel. Johnny and Freddie had had a vague rivalry during the show, and whatever they’d done to land themselves in detention in the first place had probably been his idea. He had his dumbass purple mohawk in the first two seasons, and his costumes consisted of mostly leather jackets.

He’d started going by Murphy rather than John when he was eleven or twelve. The rest of them had characters with names close to theirs, but none were quite so on the nose as John and Johnny. He’d been a kid then, and so much of his time was already spent as Johnny McFish that it had gotten difficult to tell the difference between John and Johnny.

It had been Raven’s suggestion to go by his last name, and the decision had stuck.

Murphy couldn’t act worth shit. It wasn’t a secret. He was honestly kind of shocked he’d gotten the part on Delinquents.

His acting had been about on par with the rest of the kids in the first couple of seasons, but then their acting had gotten better and his, well, hadn’t.

His singing had, though, which meant the producers had been torn about giving him a bigger part so he’d sing lead in more songs or keeping his voice in the background so no one had to watch him struggle to act like he was actually a human being. Like he said, there was a reason he’d stopped acting.

He guessed they’d found a medium somehow, and his part had gotten a bit bigger in the later seasons, with Johnny trying to clean up his act to get into college and befriending—and eventually more than befriending, apparently—Nick the nerd.

Johnny’s future had been left open, but the new script revealed that he was still singing—because obviously they wanted to showcase Murphy’s voice as much as possible. He was pretty awesome—and also worked in journalism. Which was a strange turn, but he wasn’t’ going to judge Johnny McFish’s life choices unless Johnny McFish started judging his. Except the mohawk. He was always going to judge the mohawk.

And that left Bellamy, aka Ben Shipman: Brother. Not an original member of the Breakfast Club and not a band member, Ben was Olivia’s older brother. After finding out their secret, Ben spent his time trying to expose them in increasingly ridiculous ways, and also falling in love with Claire. He’d gone on to become a teacher or something. Murphy couldn’t really remember, and in the movie he seemed to mostly just be Claire’s trophy husband.

Bellamy himself, already an Oscar winner at thirteen, had gone on to win more Oscars and star in basically every movie ever. Murphy saw him on screen way more than he’d seen him in person in the last decade. 

And that was the crew. That was the group he’d spent way more time with than anyone should spend with a group of people for eight years.

Eight years of their lives they’d spent together, and then it’d all just ended and they’d barely spoken in a decade.

Octavia clapped her hands, tucking them under her chin.

“It’s really good to see you all again,” she said, her bright red lips stretching into a grin. “I don’t know how I didn’t realize that I missed this.”

“You know,” Raven said, returning her drink to the table. “I still get asked about Delinquents in interviews.”

“Really?” Clarke asked, and she nodded.

“Yeah,” she said. “Especially lately with the ten year anniversary of the ending coming up.”

Murphy nodded. “I got asked about it on Ellen literally as Harper was taking the call from Kane,” he said, and then grimaced. “She showed one of the pictures with me and the mohawk.”

Raven patted him on the shoulder. “At least you didn’t have to wear fake braces for three seasons,” she pointed out, and, honestly, true.

“Do you get asked about it?” Clarke asked, turning to Bellamy, who shrugged.

“Not very often,” he said. “But Delinquents was more your thing than mine. The fans liked me, sure, but it wasn’t what I was known for.”

“I always get asked what we did to get into detention,” Finn said, and Murphy couldn’t help but laugh.

“That’s always the most popular question,” he agreed. “Why didn’t Kane ever just, like, write something in so he couldn’t get mad at us for making up random crap in interviews?”

Raven snorted beside him. “Remember when Octavia told Teen Vogue that we’d murdered someone and they actually printed it in the article?”

Murphy grinned. He did remember that. It’d been hilarious. Kane had been pissed.

“It was _Tiger Beat_ ,” Octavia corrected, straightening in her seat proudly. “Still one of the best things I’ve ever done, even though Kane made me do that press conference and tell everyone I’d lied.”

Bellamy laughed. “She still has the article hung up in her room,” he said, and Octavia flicked her balled up napkin at him.

“Oh!” Clarke sat forward, leaning away from Bellamy’s arm that was wrapped around her. “I almost forgot! Kane says no explicit announcements, but we’re allowed to post vaguely about being together if we want.”

Finn jumped on the idea immediately, and Raven suggested they each get their own photo to post, and then it was a mad scramble of shifting into different poses as they each pulled out their phones. Raven fell back into him in the last picture, and he wrapped his arm around her, grinning as Octavia took the photo.

Raven didn’t move away as they all fell back into the booth, leaning against him enough that it’d be weird if he didn’t wrap his arm around her, and he couldn’t say that he minded. There had been a lot of shots while they were catching up. Neither of them were exactly sober, and, even if he had been sober, he probably wouldn’t have minded Raven leaning against him.

“A jock, a nerd, a princess, a rebel, a weirdo, and a brother walk into a bar,” Finn dictated, typing away at his phone. “Stop me if you’ve heard this one already.” He glanced up and caught the look Murphy was giving him. “What? It’d be weird if we all had the same caption, right?”

There was a chorus of reluctant agreement that Finn was right, and Murphy finished typing up his own Instagram post.

“Is someone missing some delinquent losers?” he read, smirking over his phone at the others. “Think they sat here by mistake.”

“Mom, they’re doing it again,” Bellamy said, putting on the high-and-mighty tone Ben had used, and Murphy laughed. “I swear I can prove it this time. Mom? Are you there?”

“Cactus emoji, sunflower emoji, dancing lady emoji, unicorn emoji,” Raven said, and Murphy turned to look at her.

“What does that even mean?” Clarke asked, giggling and taking another sip of her drink.

Raven shrugged. “No idea, but people will definitely have some theories.”

Octavia laughed, and then raised her own phone. “At tigerbeatsnow,” she started, and Murphy snorted, falling a little bit more against Raven. “I am officially retracting my retraction. It WAS murder.”

They all looked to Clarke, who shrugged. “I don’t have an official Instagram,” she reminded them.

“I think we’re ready then,” Octavia said. “Post on three, two, one.”

Murphy hit post and then sent Harper a text that he was turning off his phone. There was no way that wasn’t going to go viral immediately, not with the entire cast posting almost the same thing to Instagram at once, and he would prefer his night not be interrupted by a constantly buzzing phone.

Raven turned off her phone as well, as did the others.

Except for Clarke, who had a non-official Instagram, apparently, and also apparently followed all of them, and who kept scrolling through all the replies and telling them the funniest ones.

“A lot of people want to have your babies, Murphy,” she said. “They don’t even care about the rest of us.”

Murphy raised his glass, smirking at them. “It’s a gift,” he said. “I don’t know what to tell you, except that one day so many people will have had my babies that I’ll be able to take over the world.”

It wasn’t long after that that the others started leaving.

Finn’s parents still lived nearby, so he was heading back to their house. Octavia’s girlfriend was in town for a few days, so she was off to spend the rest of the night with her.

“We’re heading back to the hotel,” Clarke said, standing up and pulling on her coat. “Are you coming?”

Murphy glanced at Raven, still half leaning on him, and she raised her brows.

“I’m good to stay a while longer if you are,” he said, and she grinned.

“Oh, I’m good to go all night,” she assured him, and Murphy wondered if she meant for it to sound as sexual as it did.

They hugged Clarke and Bellamy goodbye, and then Raven was watching him, hands on her hips.

She was dressed much more casually than he’d seen her in years. Of course, most of what he’d seen her in was what she wore in movies or to premiers, so it wasn’t like he had much to go on there.

But he liked this look on Raven, just a simple jeans and t-shirt look. She looked good.

“Do you want to dance?” he asked, because he’d definitely had too much to drink and because he didn’t know what else they were going to do at this bar.

Raven raised an eyebrow. “You’re not scared people are going to recognize you anymore?” she asked, because Octavia had very thoroughly demonstrated the disguise he’d come in.

Because sue him for not wanting to be hounded by a bunch of fans, right?

“There are literally like five other people here,” he pointed out, gesturing at the mostly empty bar. “None of them have asked any of us for autographs when there was a literal table full of celebrities. I think we’re safe.”

Raven grinned and grabbed his hand, tugging him towards an empty space of floor that was either missing a table or was actually a dance floor, Murphy wasn’t sure. It didn’t really matter, though, because either way it was a dance floor now.

Murphy couldn’t dance. He had been able to learn the basic choreography he had to do in Delinquents, and when you were the star of a concert, no one cared if you matched your backup.

But generally, he couldn’t dance much better than he could act.

Raven, though, didn’t seem to care, and they twirled and laughed until they were breathless.

“We need another drink,” she suggested, and Murphy agreed, so they headed back to the bar.

Talking to Raven, being with Raven, it was easy. It was like they hadn’t spent the better part of a decade barely talking. They’d fallen back into their old habits so quickly, teasing each other and just enjoying each other’s company.

Murphy hadn’t really had a friend in a while. It was something he hadn’t realized he’d missed from his Delinquent days, a group of people who really knew him. He had friends, sure, other musicians mostly, but he had to be Grammy winning artist John Murphy around them. He couldn’t just be Murphy. Harper was really the only person he saw regularly that he didn’t have to pretend around, and he didn’t know if she really counted, considering he literally paid her to be around.

His castmates, though, as long as it’d been since he’d seen them, he could still be just Murphy around them.

And there was something about Raven that made it all that easier.

It was why he only barely protested when his latest single came on the radio in the bar and Raven screamed and tugged him back out on the dance floor, insisting that it would be a crime if he didn’t dance to his own song.

It was why he found himself leaning down to kiss her, as his voice sung around them about lost loves and missed chances.

She kissed him back, her hands tangling in his hair, and Murphy tugged her even closer.

The hotel was just down the street, which was very handy of whoever had designed this town. If the walk had been any further, Murphy wasn’t sure they’d have made it to one of their rooms in time.

Murphy woke up with a pounding head and an arm that had been trapped under something for long enough that it had gone to sleep. And he really had to pee. So like everything was great.

He tried to free his arm, tugging at it with his eyes still closed. Whatever it was stuck under shifted and groaned, and he froze.

He peeked open one eye, the light from the open windows too bright, and took in the person lying next to him.

Raven.

He closed his eye again, laying back in bed and taking a breath.

Okay. He’d slept with Raven. That was fine. That was cool. That was great.

But he still had to pee and he really should take something for his head, so he started tugging at his arm again and finally managed to get it free.

He found his sweats in the bathroom, which was the first clue he’d found that they’d made it to his room rather than hers, and he pulled them on as he headed back into the bedroom.

Raven was sitting up when he came back in, eyes half closed as she tried to tame her hair with her fingers. 

“Morning,” he said, and she opened her eyes the rest of the way.

“Morning.”

They stared at each other for a few moments, and Murphy really hoped that what happened last night wouldn’t make everything go to shit.

It shouldn’t, in theory. They were both adults. They’d both been with people before. Sleeping with someone didn’t have to make things awkward afterwards.

And, besides. Last night hadn’t been the first time he’d kissed Raven. That had been when he was twelve, after Kane had first instructed him and Octavia to start to try to subtly act like they were into each other, because they were going to kiss on the finale and be in a relationship starting next season.

Murphy had started freaking out because he’d never kissed anyone before and did he even _want_ to kiss Octavia and how was he supposed to have his first kiss in front of a camera?

Raven had been the unfortunate recipient of his tirade of confused questions, and she’d interrupted him by kissing him square on the mouth.

“There,” she’d said. “Now you don’t have to freak out anymore. You’re welcome.”

It had actually worked. Sort of. He’d still been completely awkward with Octavia—and she with him—awkward enough that their relationship arc had ended well before Kane and the writers had planned it to, but he’d stopped freaking out.

And nothing had changed with Raven.

Sure, the situation was a little different now, but Murphy didn’t see any reason why the way they dealt with it should be.

Raven was the one who broke their staring contest, sighing.

“Look,” she said, picking at the blanket. “I just got out of a two year relationship, like, a month ago, and I’m not looking for anything serious right now.”

“Me neither,” Murphy hurried to add. He was never looking for something serious. If something serious happened, then it happened, but he never went out of his way to make it so. Raven looked back up at him, and he smirked at her. “Last night _was_ pretty great, though.”

Raven laughed. “Yeah,” she agreed. “I wouldn’t mind doing it again.”

Murphy raised an eyebrow, stepping closer to the bed. “Well, we’re both gonna be around until filming ends,” he pointed out, letting his eyes rake over her. “No one says we can’t have some great casual sex while we’re here.”

Raven cocked her head. “You’re right,” she said, and then she dropped the sheet she’d been holding up and Murphy’s eyes retraced their path over the newly revealed skin. “In fact, I wouldn’t mind some more great casual sex right now.”

Murphy grinned at her, closing the rest of the distance to the bed and hopping up on it.

“I think we could make that happen.”

“No.” Murphy shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

Harper rolled her eyes and pushed him back down in the chair. “It’s not up for discussion,” she told him, and he huffed. She met his gaze in the mirror. “This stuff is supposed to wash out after a week. That should be long enough, and then it’s gone and you don’t have to relive it ever again.”

Murphy scowled at her. “I don’t want to relive it _now_ ,” he reminded her.

“It’s an iconic look,” she said, and Murphy hated that she had a point. “If you want to do this, we’re doing it right.”

Murphy turned his scowl on the box of hair dye. Would it really be that bad to have his hair be purple again? It was just for a week. And it would definitely be pointed out if his hair wasn’t purple.

“Fine,” he grunted.

Harper grinned at him and patted him on the head like he was a child. She gestured for the hair stylist to come closer, and then she was gone, off to check on whatever else was being done today.

They’d had their first table reading of the script the day he first woke up with Raven, and it was there that he’d pitched his—well, Harper’s—idea for the music video to go along with his next single.

It was a fast paced rocky pop song about how being in love made you feel like a kid again, and what better way to both feel like a kid again _and_ tease at the movie than by dressing up like Johnny McFish and inviting the rest of the cast of Delinquents back for the music video?

Everyone was on board immediately, and Kane gave Harper the contacts for some of the other cast mates that weren’t reprising their roles in the movie. Harper had had this song on her shortlist of possible colabs for the new album, so Murphy had brought up the possibility to Octavia, and they’d been in the recording studio a few days later, hashing out the new remix.

Murphy was excited. His acting skills were fine for the limited acting he had to do in music videos.

He had just somehow thought that he’d be able to get through this whole thing without having to dye his hair purple again.

He’d spent the last two weeks running lines, rehearsing the songs, and hooking up with Raven, and, so far, he wasn’t exactly hating the whole movie business thing.

The next two weeks were going to be spent filming the footage for his music video and recording the songs for the movie, and then they’d head into the actual filming.

An hour later, the hair stylist had finally finished his makeover.

“Ready?” she said, grinning at him, and Murphy rolled his eyes.

“I already know I’m gonna hate it,” he told her, and she laughed and spun him around to face the mirror.

It wasn’t as bad as he thought it was going to be. It was bad, sure, but he was definitely expecting it to be worse. The fact that she hadn’t completely shaved the sides of his head was a good thing. All his hair being spiked up into a fauxhawk was definitely a better look than the full on mohawk he’d been forced into as a kid.

But it was still fucking purple.

The stylist left while he was still staring at his hair, having done his makeup before revealing the whole look, and Murphy sighed and set about getting changed. At least Johnny McFish had a pretty easy look. He was definitely getting off easy in the clothing department with his ripped jeans, leather jacket, and t-shirt baring Delinquents’ band logo.

A fact that was proven immediately true once he stepped on set for the video and ran into Raven.

His eyes swept over her slowly, a smirk stretching across his lips. Harper had decided they were going with the early seasons’ looks for the video, since those were their most iconic. Hence why his head currently looked like Barney had puked on it.

Raine’s nerdiness had been cranked to the max in the first few seasons, just in case the audience couldn’t figure out her archetype, which meant that Raven was dressed to the nines in baggy plaid pants, a white shirt with suspenders, and her hair in twin braids. She had thick glasses on, and, since she was laughing at his hair, he could clearly see that they’d gone with the fake braces too.

“Your fucking hair,” she said, grinning at him.

He smirked back, let his eyes run slowly up her body. “I don’t even know where to start with your look,” he said, raising an eyebrow once he reached her face.

Raven rolled his eyes, and he glanced around to make sure no one was watching, and then leaned closer to kiss her. He wasn’t sure why, there was no way it could lead to anything else, not right now, not while they were on the set of his music video. But he liked kissing her, and there probably wouldn’t be an issue with it.

Apparently he was wrong, because his lips met her hand and not her mouth.

Raven gave him a wry grin, brightly coloured braces flashing in the light. “There is no fucking way I’m kissing you with these things in my mouth,” she said, and Murphy laughed.

Clarke appeared then, hair done up in careful curls and held back by a sparkly barrette, dressed in a pink tulle dress that was almost more of a tutu, another casualty of the early seasons of Delinquents.

“Harper says she’s quitting if you’re not on set in thirty seconds,” she said, smirking at them. “Nice hair.”

“Nice dress,” he shot back, and Clarke flipped him off. “Tell Harper I know she’s lying because she’d miss me too much if she quit.”

He turned back to Raven as Clarke left, and swept his arm out. “After you, Raine.”

She grinned at him, all braces. “Let’s get this show on the road, Johnny.”

Being back in the acting business was weird to say the least. The music video was in editing and he’d recorded far more Christmas music than he’d ever wanted to, and now they were three weeks into filming the movie, and fuck if Murphy wasn’t completely validated in his decision to quit acting a decade ago.

Because he was fucking terrible at it.

He flopped back onto the couch in Johnny’s apartment after another failed take, Rusty, the golden retriever who played Johnny’s dog Chicken, jumping up next to him and dropping her head in his lap.

“You did good on that one,” he told her, scratching her head. “That one was on me.”

The director was talking in harsh whispers with Kane and some of the other people working on set, and Murphy was pretty sure that he’d be getting fired if he was a less important cast member.

“Take a break, Murphy,” Kane called without looking at him, and Murphy eased Rusty’s head off his lap and went off in search of snacks.

Raven was leaning against the food table when he made it there, smirking at him.

“You really suck at this.”

He rolled his eyes at her, reaching past for access to the mini muffins.

“I sucked at this a decade ago, too,” he reminded her. “I just wasn’t competing with Oscar winning talent back then.”

Raven hummed noncommittally, watching him shove three muffins into his mouth. “Bellamy had won an Oscar then.”

“Whatever.” Murphy swallowed his mouthful, turning to look at her. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to do this and not look awkward as fuck next to all of you.”

“Just stop thinking about it so much,” Raven said, like it was really that easy. “You’re overthinking it and it’s making it weird. Just relax and pretend it’s real.”

Murphy sighed, reaching for more mini muffins, but Raven stopped him with her hand on his arm.

“Kane said you’re on break, right?” she asked, and he nodded slowly. A grin stretched across her face. “I know a really great way to help you chill out.”

Murphy grinned back, pretty sure he knew how Raven planned to help him chill out, and let her tug him away.

When she pulled him into a storage closet and kissed him, he was proven right.

Kane and the director weren’t exactly happy with how long his break had taken, but it only took him two more takes to finally nail the scene, so maybe Raven was onto something.

Seeing Raven and Finn act like they were in love was weird, to say the least. The difference in the acting styles of the cast was also most apparent in the scenes where it was just the two of them.

Clarke hadn’t acted in years, but was still good at it. Probably wouldn’t win any awards, but she could hold her own.

Murphy’s acting was shit, but he could pull himself together after enough takes that they could find something workable. He was also much better in scenes where he was with the others and could bounce off whatever they were bringing to the table.

Octavia did TV acting whenever she felt like it, and Murphy could tell that, no matter what she said, her Oscar winning brother was not the only reason she got the parts.

Raven and Bellamy held multiple Oscars between the two of them. They were the level of actors who normally wouldn’t be caught dead in a cheesy made for TV Christmas movie. They were the level of actors who didn’t usually have to work with a singer who couldn’t act, an ex-child star who hadn’t acted in a decade, or a rock star who sometimes acted in TV shows.

And then there was Finn, whose Hallmark stardom meant his brand of acting was over the top and overly cheesy.

And it just didn’t mesh all that well with Raven’s Oscar worthy talent.

Not that Murphy was jealous or anything. Honestly, it was better for the fans that Raine had ended up with Freddie rather than Johnny, because there was no way they’d ever finish filming if Murphy had to be in any more scenes than he already was.

He was just stating the facts. If he, as someone who would be the first to admit he was shit at all things acting related, could tell that Raven and Finn’s differences in acting choices were not working the best, then he had no idea what Kane and his people were thinking.

If he had to guess, they were probably beating themselves up for planning a movie instead of something simpler, like a two hour special where they all just talked about their time on the show and sang a few songs.

There was also the fact that the director had to keep telling him to fix his face whenever he was in a scene where Raven and Finn had to be affectionate. He wasn’t sure what his face was doing that needed to be fixed, but Bellamy kept shooting him sympathetic looks and Murphy didn’t know what to make about that.

(Octavia had walked in on them a few weeks back and spread the word. Everyone was surprisingly chill with the fact that he and Raven were casually hooking up, not that Murphy was complaining or anything.)

But Murphy had to play nice and fix his face and act like he didn’t hate it every time he had to watch Raven and Finn kiss or cuddle. He had to pretend he was excited when his “brother” told him he was going to propose to Raine, had to help him pick out a ring and ignore the weird feelings that brought in his gut.

But, while he may have been a shitty actor in other areas, hiding his feelings and pretending he didn’t have any was something he did best, and his performance was so great that he even managed to fool himself.

Murphy got to watch the music video a few days before it came out, and honestly, he was a fan.

The video opened with a school bell ringing, and a shot of drumsticks tapping out a beat on a desk. A woman’s voice spoke from off camera.

“Welcome to detention. You all know what you did to be here.”

The shot changed to one of a foot rolling a basketball back and forth across the floor.

“There will be no talking.”

A mouth, the teeth bearing multicoloured braces, chewing on the nails of a hand.

“There will be no eating.”

A different hand, the nails a hot pink, twirling at curly blonde hair.

“You are here as a punishment—”

New hands, friendship bracelets running up the arms they were attached to, opening and closing a paper fortune teller.

“— _not_ to have fun.”

The voiceover ended and the camera switched back to the drumsticks, still tapping against the desk, and then panned up the body attached to the hands that held them. Past the leather jacket and the Delinquents t-shirt. Past a bored face until the accompanying bright purple fauxhawk had made it on screen.

Murphy’s face shifted into a smirk just as the first chord hit.

The music video switched between generic scenes of the Delinquents bandmembers at school and on stage, and more iconic scenes from the series. Bellamy lurked behind corners, appearing with a camera or on a phone in a phone booth. Their on screen parents almost caught them every now and again. Finn and Raven made out under the bleachers. Clarke, in her sparkly pink dress, recreated the iconic punch in the face of the resident school bully. Octavia auditioned for the cheer squad in a dress she’d made out of pompoms. Murphy released a bunch of chickens into the staff room.

All of it was set to the cheery pop of Murphy and Octavia singing about love and feeling like a kid again, snippets of them singing on stage and on a table in a cafeteria popping up.

The song ended, and the camera snapped back to detention, the teacher’s hand slamming down on Murphy’s desk, where he startled back into attention.

“Mr. McFish, there is no music in detention,” she said, and Murphy sighed and handed over the drumsticks.

There was the sound of footsteps as the teacher walked away, and then he turned to look at the camera, and the video closed on his smirk.

The fans loved it. With the combined quantities of his fans and the fans of the rest of his music video co-stars, the video went viral in minutes, becoming his most popular music video within an hour. People went crazy. Most loved the video. Some were disappointed that X random character didn’t make an appearance. Some decided that this must be the extent of the reunion, and were disappointed by that.

“Stop scrolling through comments,” Raven told him, pulling his phone from his hand. 

Murphy protested, and she tossed it to the floor.

“You don’t need to know what they’re thinking,” she said, and, yeah, she was kind of right. “Besides, I think there’s something better you could do with your time.”

Murphy met her smirk with one of her own, rolling over in his—their, really, since she hadn’t actually returned to her own hotel bed since that first night—bed until he was laying above her.

“I can’t think of anything,” he said, and she huffed and tugged him down to kiss her.

Clarke and Bellamy’s wedding took place at the end of June. It was a small, pretty thing. Only a handful of close friends and family were invited, and, somehow, Murphy found himself on the guestlist.

The wedding itself was nice. _Nice_ probably wasn’t what Clarke and Bellamy were wanting to hear about their wedding, but Murphy wasn’t exactly up there on wedding stuff. They’d said some mushy stuff. They’d kissed. Everyone had thrown rice at them for reasons Murphy wasn’t entirely clear on.

It was nice. It was a solid wedding. Murphy approved of it.

The reception, though, was what he was there for, with an open bar and enough food to feed an army.

He was at a table with Raven and Finn and some of the other non-family, non-super close friends. Finn brought a date, some girl whose name Murphy had already forgotten that he’d met on set of one of his movies, and was paying more attention to her than to them. Which was completely fine with Murphy. Raven may have mostly moved on from Finn cheating on her, but grudges were something Murphy was good at, and he preferred to spend as little time interacting with his on-screen brother as possible.

So he was mostly hanging out with Raven, and they were celebrating Clarke and Bellamy getting hitched by stuffing themselves and getting wasted, as any good friends should do.

“We should dance,” Raven said, words so reminiscent of his so many nights ago. “Let’s dance.”

This time, when she led him away from their table, there was an actual dance floor and other actual people dancing. He twirled Raven around, laughed with her as they stumbled over their own feet in their drunkenness.

When she leaned in to kiss him, he let her, not worried about anyone seeing them.

He didn’t care if Clarke and Bellamy’s closest friends and family found out he was sleeping with Raven. He didn’t care if they thought they were together.

In fact, he kind of wanted them to think they were together. He wanted everyone to know that he and Raven were together, that Raven was his and he was hers and they were each others and no one else could have them.

It wasn’t the truth, not really, but in his drunk, happy state, he learned that that was something he really wanted.

He didn’t know how he was supposed to deal with it, so he just kissed her again instead.

Feelings and shit were a problem for future Murphy.

There was one scene in the movie where it was just Johnny and Raine. Raine was, at this point, convinced that Freddie was going to dump her, and she’d gone to confront his brother and figure things out once and for all. Johnny would comfort her and try to convince her that everything was fine, that Freddie loved her and wasn’t going to dump her right before Christmas, and then, after Raine left, he phoned Freddie and told him that he needed to get his shit together and propose soon.

It was a brief scene, one that shouldn’t have taken as long as it did to film.

But there was something about telling about how difficult it was for Murphy to reassure Raven that her “boyfriend” loved her. He couldn’t help but think of a similar scene years ago in real life, assuring Raven that he’d risk everything and go beat Finn up if she wanted him to.

Then, Finn had cheated on Raven and their marriage was over.

Now, Freddie was out psyching himself up to propose to Raine and Johnny was supposed to assure her her relationship was secure, not promise he’d go beat him up.

It was fucking with his head, because he never wanted to encourage Raven to go to someone else. He never wanted Raven to be with anyone else but him.

“Tell me!” Raven yelled at him, getting up in his face. “Johnny, you have to know what’s going on with him! Tell me I’m being crazy! Please!”

“Raine,” he said, because that was his line, because, even if he hadn’t memorized his lines before filming, they’d done so many fucking takes that he could probably recite this scene in his sleep.

“Tell me!” Raven yelled again, stepping even closer and shoving at his chest. There were tears in her eyes, and _fuck_ she was a good actor. “Please, Johnny. I love him.”

Murphy wasn’t really listening, couldn’t really concentrate on her words when she was looking at him, even her eyes so desperate. A tear fell, and he wiped it away without thinking, his hand still on her cheek as he leaned closer and closer, his eyes dropping to her lips.

“Cut!”

Murphy jerked back at the yell, turning away from Raven to look at the people gathered by the cameras. Kane had his head in his hands, and Jaha was basically fuming.

“Mr. Murphy,” he said, crossing onto the set. “Have you even read the script?”

Murphy heard a muffled snort coming from beside him and couldn’t turn to look at Raven, knowing he’d start laughing too.

“I have.”

“Then you should know that you are not supposed to be kissing her in this scene,” Jaha continued, leveling them with a scowl. “Or any scene. Because Johnny McFish and Raine Castle do not end up together.”

Maybe Johnny McFish and Raine Castle were not meant to be. Murphy was okay with that. He was absolutely okay that their fictional counterparts wouldn’t spend their lives together. It was never an option for Johnny and Raine, really.

But Murphy was starting to think that maybe he wouldn’t be okay if John Murphy and Raven Reyes weren’t meant to be.

And he was nowhere near a good enough actor to turn that off and get through this scene.

“Jaha, give them five,” Kane called, and Jaha sighed and waved them off.

Raven followed him off set, over to an empty corner. He didn’t look at her, just dug a hand into his hair and tried to figure out what he was supposed to say.

“Murphy,” Raven started, reaching out a hand to touch his arm.

He didn’t let her continue, just spun around to face her. “I can’t do this anymore,” he told her. “I _like_ you, Raven. I like-like you. I can’t just sleep with you anymore and pretend I don’t.”

Raven stared at him for a moment, just long enough that he started to fear her answer, and then she was grinning at him, tugging him in to kiss him.

“No one over the age of twelve says _like-like_ ,” she laughed when they came up for air.

“Shut up,” he said, the bite of the words lost to his grin. He kissed her again, but she pulled back after a moment.

“I like-like you, too,” she said, and Murphy wasn’t sure he’d ever been happier in his life.

She let him kiss her a few more moments, then pulled away entirely.

“We still have a scene to finish,” she told him, and he groaned.

Filming wrapped in late August. Murphy still wasn’t sure he actually looked like he knew what he was doing in any of his scenes, but that was no longer his problem. He had his new album coming out at the end of September, so most of his free time was spent promoting one or the other.

Raven had decided to take the rest of the year off from projects, which left her free to follow him around to whatever music related event he had, which was fucking amazing.

He was pretty sure he was falling in love with her. Murphy didn’t fall in love easily, barely ever liked anyone enough to date them as more than a publicity stunt, so it was a big deal.

It didn’t feel like it.

Being with Raven felt as natural as breathing.

“Do we finally get to learn the big secret of Delinquents?” the interviewer asked, and Murphy shared a smirk with Raven. “What did all of you do to get detention?”

They had it down by now, so, with a cue from Octavia, they all said, “Murder,” and the interviewer laughed like they’d said something funny.

Murphy had to head out after the interview, catch a flight across the country for a concert, but he’d catch a flight every day if he had Raven by his side.

Murphy had written music for years. He wrote love songs and heartache songs and everything in between. He wrote so much mushy crap that his fans had eaten up but he hadn’t really believed.

But Raven made him think the mushy crap completely unironically.

“John,” the interviewer said, and he snapped back to attention. “Any hints on what we’ll see on your album?”

Murphy smirked, leaning forward in his seat. “There’s a lot of mushy crap,” he said, and Bellamy laughed loudly. He turned his gaze towards Raven, his smirk softening a little. “And I mean every word.”

“It’s starting!”

Murphy swore, tapping on the microwave like that might make the last few seconds on the popcorn go faster. It finally beeped, and he yanked the bag out, spilling half its contents on the floor in his haste to rip it open and transfer it to the bowl. He almost crashed into the Christmas tree as he rounded the corner into the living room, but managed to swerve at the last second.

The theme song for Delinquents was still playing when he finally made it into the bedroom.

“Move,” he said, and then gently shoved Rusty over when she ignored him. He climbed into his bed next to Raven, wrapping an arm around her and handing her the bowl of popcorn.

“What did I miss?” he asked, watching the logo fade out to a generic shot of a snowy house.

“Just a montage of all our best moments,” Raven said, turning to grin at him. “There were several of Mohawk Johnny, don’t worry.”

Murphy laughed and rolled his eyes. “I’m sure there was also a bunch of Braces Raine, too,” he countered, and Raven shushed him, already completely focused on Raine and Freddie decorating their Christmas tree.

He pressed a kiss against the side of her head. He could spend the next hour and a half—or two and a half hours with commercials—watching the onscreen Raven get proposed to by the onscreen Finn.

Maybe he should’ve felt a little jealous, but there wasn’t any there.

It was definitely because he was the one who had the real Raven in his arms, not Finn.

So, yeah, he could watch her fall in love with Finn on screen—or any of the other co-stars he’d have to watch her with in the future.

Because he was the only one who got her in real life.

And that was so much better.

**Author's Note:**

> Hope you enjoyed!!
> 
> Comments and kudos bring me life!
> 
> Have a happy holiday!


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